The Guardian
by lambs79
Summary: Bella is pregnant and gets cancer. This is BPOV from her last few days and her views of herself and Edward. Contains character death. Bring tissues! VERY SAD. AH E&B o/s


I guess I was in the mood for a tear jerker story. It is a o/s E&B. Bella has cancer and a baby. It contains character death. If you don't like people dying and sickness, then don't read it. It deals with cancer, death, and love. Some medical things may not be accurate but it is fiction. I wrote it because it was in my head. I hope you enjoy it.

Bring TISSUES! Final warning.

I do not own twilight.

I took a deep breath that I didn't need. That is because my heart didn't beat, my lungs were rendered useless to force oxygen through my body.

I stared down at her in the sterile white bed barely a yard away.

It was strange staring down from my perch above. I wasn't flying… I just sort of… hovered.

The only thing that lay between us was a thin white sheet and a cord of gold braid that could only be described as luminous.

This was the only thing keeping me from floating away into nothing, into the abyss. Well, the cord and my determination.

I knew this girl that lay on the bed. She looked like me only paler and so still.

I knew… it was me.

It was this weak young thing between the cold sheets whose heart beat and lungs expanded that kept me tethered here.

I knew my cord was mirrored on the other side of the sheet. It wrapped itself around where my beating heart should have been. It clung to hers.

If you looked carefully, you could see the delicate pulsing of light and strength within the braid. Its pulse was timed directly with the blips of the heart monitor above our heads.

When I had first awoken to this reality, the pulse was strong and deep. The cord was thick that you barely wrap your fingers around it. Now the light had diminished, but it was not gone and what was once a strong rope, now held on by ten, maybe twenty threads curled around one another.

I knew as each thread fell away, her life came closer to the end also.

But I was determined. I would do everything, anything, that I could to keep this cord attached as long as I could.

My reason for living knelt next to the bed praying.

My Edward.

My husband.

My everything.

I knew my husband. He was not a religious man. He was too immersed in science. He always said religion was for those who could not see reason.

Now I listened and watched as he prayed for a miracle.

Because that is the only thing that could possibly save me now.

Dear God,

Please save her.

I'll sell all of my possessions.

I'll go to church.

I'd gladly give you my life for hers.

Don't ask me to live without her.

It was a prayer that was uttered over and over again across his lips and in his heart.

I watched as his shoulders shook in silent sobs between the pleas.

But no begging or promises could stop what had already begun.

It's difficult to imagine that barely six months ago, Edward and I had been celebrating. We had just found out we were expecting.

We left the doctor's office that Wednesday with an ultrasound in hand and a smile on our faces. I was seven weeks pregnant. There was a tiny pea sized bloom on the mostly black piece of paper in my hand.

Life couldn't get better for Edward as his face shown with the new reality that he was going to be a father. We couldn't wait to begin discussing baby names and ideas for the nursery. He insisted on driving straight to the local baby boutique to look at clothes, bottles, binkies, and anything else you could think of.

The next twelve weeks were complete bliss as we relished in our new reality. Our families were ecstatic. Since we were both only children, this would be their first grandchild. Our mothers bought little onesies and the tiniest little outfits that you could imagine. We had an arrangement of pink and blue and yellow lined up in the closet since we didn't know what we were having yet.

Of course I had days of nausea and fatigue, but I was pregnant. I didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary.

Then we arrived for our twenty week appointment. I was scheduled for an ultrasound and Edward accompanied me as he did for every appointment. But this time we were both excited. We were going to find out the sex of our child.

I laid back on the table and watched as the technician set up the equipment.

We both watched eagerly as she moved the wand around on my stomach to find the best picture of our little peanut.

She would stop occasionally to take a measurement and take a picture on the monitor.

Then she went to go find the doctor.

We thought nothing of it until the technician and the doctor came back in the room examining the screen with grim looks on their faces.

I was beyond frightened. Was there something wrong with my baby? Why weren't they telling us anything?

Finally, Doctor Bryant turned the screen towards us and sat down by my side.

She explained there appeared to be a mass in my left ovary. They couldn't be positive now if it was malignant or benign. They would need to use a long needle to aspirate some cells from the mass to find out before they knew or any decisions could be made.

I squeezed my eyes shut and squeezed the living daylights out of Edward's hand as the doctor used the ultrasound and a long needle to take a sample of the cells of the mass in my body and prayed much as Edward is doing now.

I thought at the time that the next forty-eight hours would be the most difficult of my life.

We learned two days later that the mass was cancerous, we were both stunned. Edward and I locked ourselves away the entire weekend and cried.

At the time when Edward asked me what I wanted to do, I knew the general implications of the decision, but the future was still an obscure reality.

I knew what Edward wanted me to do even though he knew better than to ask. I could never agree to that.

I remembered just a few days ago our joy and excitement surrounding his pending arrival. Now, they expected me to make a life and death decision.

There was no way I could choose death of this tiny creature that resided inside of me.

We followed-up with Dr. Bryant the next Monday and I told her my decision was made. I refused surgery and could not start chemotherapy or radiation until my child was old enough to survive on his own.

I didn't let the tormented look upon her face register in my mind at the time, but I understood that this could mean a death warrant for either me or my child. The chances of us both surviving the effects of this condition were slim. My decision to wait didn't guarantee a life for my son, but I hoped it gave him a chance.

So every week for the next nine weeks I had an ultrasound to assess Jeremiah's growth and my tumor.

I was told he had a chance of survival at twenty-four weeks, but I knew it was slim and the chances of significant developmental deficits was high. My husband was a doctor and I knew enough to know the implications and possible complications that could arise at such an early birth. I insisted on waiting.

So we waited… and watched.

I watched as my son grew.

Edward watched as the tumor grew and I became weaker.

And I watched as the life and joy that I found in my husband's face a few weeks ago ebbed away.

At the twenty-sixth week he dropped to his knees and begged me.

I had never seen my strong, brave husband shed a tear, but they came that day. Hot tears burned his cheeks one after another as he begged me to seek treatment. He begged me to stay and save myself.

But I had to know, I had to make sure my son would make it. That he would be okay.

So despite, it ripped my heart out, I had to say no.

I had gone in for my twenty-nine week appointment and the doctor said the thing that scared me the most.

The tumor was encroaching upon my uterus, the only protection my son has from the body that has turned against me.

If they left him, the oxygen supply that is provided through the placenta could be cut off and he could die silently within me.

On June 10, 2011 at twelve thirty-seven in the afternoon, my son Jeremiah Edward was born by C-section.

That same day, the doctors performed a complete hysterectomy and oophorectomy.

I wasn't able to see Jeremiah until a week later due to my own healing as well as his risk of infection.

When he was born, he weighed just over two pounds and was fourteen inches long.

I was only able to see him nestled in the sterile confines of his incubator. I was too weak and still too sick to hold my son. He had all kinds of cords and tubes around him monitoring his breathing, heart rate and blood pressure.

I told him how much I loved him.

Then I turned to the man I loved that stood beside me and made him promise to protect his son and love him unconditionally no matter what happened to me.

I received a kiss on the forehead and a silent promise.

He didn't know at the time how much I would make him keep to that promise.

The following day was the first day as I know it now.

It was confusing to see her lying so still. It was heart-wrenching to see my husband beg the girl that was me to wake, open her eyes, move, anything.

I watched as he was forced to call my father, Charlie, and his mother, Elizabeth. I saw the pain in his face as Edward did his best to calmly explain the grim prognosis of the encephalitis to my father. The light was gone from my love's eyes. All I saw was pain in the dark circles that met his face under his eyes.

An hour after the calls were made, my best friend Alice burst into the room suddenly and clutched my husband as they attempted to provide one another strength.

But still, her body laid still despite the thick, pulsing golden rope that joined us at the heart.

I stayed in this manner for two full days watching people I loved come and go from above.

It was June 20th, my Edward's birthday.

I don't think he noticed.

He never left her side, not even to check on our son.

It was June 20th when her body turned on me and shook with fever.

I watched as the first thread dropped to the ground under my feet.

Her skin was flushed and sweating. The doctors came and went regularly to try to rule out what was causing the infection and argued how to best treat it given her unresponsive state, but little changed.

The fever crept higher.

With each degree, the threads became untwined until a half dozen golden strings littered the area around me.

Edward held her hand in one of his and a cool cloth in another in a vain attempt to cool her. He couldn't leave it for five minutes before it was warm under his hand. Every fifteen minutes or so he would take her temperature.

When her temperature had reached 104.3, her body convulsed.

His eyes widened as he witnessed the tonic seizure. Edward scrambled to call the nurse before returning and trying to move her onto her side.

The shaking movement continued for what seemed like hours, but what was probably fifteen minutes.

It was during this time when our cord unraveled the fastest. By the time it was over, threads littered the area around me covering my floor. The cord was transformed to what it is now – the weak, throbbing band of threads.

Much faster than how it came to be, her temperature dropped to 96.2 degrees, but her body was able to remain still.

The next day was silent, but for the prayer.

Dear God,

Please save her.

I'll sell all of my possessions.

I'll go to church.

I'd gladly give you my life for hers.

Don't ask me to live without her.

I watched as people filed in and out regularly. Family, Alice, and doctors, only Edward staying for more than ten minutes.

The doctors would ask if there had been a change. Elizabeth and Alice asked if he would like to see his son. Edward could respond no more than a shake of his head to anyone who spoke so as not to interrupt his mantra.

Maybe at this time you had to be a spirit to be able to detect the slight shift. Maybe it was due to the quiet pulsing of the rope between my hands that I was able to feel the slight slowing of her heart.

It was only a beat here and a beat there. But it was enough.

If I could yell and scream for them to notice me, I would. I had tried.

But here I was, floating above and invisible to all who couldn't really change the unavoidable anyway.

I knew we were dying.

It was clear that this rope could not be tethered much longer. Its once shining brilliance was now a dull glow in the fluorescent lights of the hospital room.

But maybe that's all she needed.

For she used that last bit of strength to pull her lids open.

At first, they seemed unfocused, but she quickly caught sight of her husband kneeling next to her bed.

She tried to move her lips around his name, but her tongue was like sandpaper.

She swallowed and tried again and his eyes shot up to hers.

He lept to his feet, hitting the nurse's call button desperately while refusing to leave her sight in fear that it could be a dream.

But while using all of the strength she had in her body, she reached up to touch his face.

With his gentle strength, he held her hand against his cheek and whispered his love to his wife and mother of his child.

In a whisper, barely audible to the human ear, but loud and clear to my own, she demanded, "Promise me, Edward."

He stared down at her like a thirsty man who had found his water responding, "Anything, my love."

"Love him like I would. For the both of us, you must live," she said in her strongest voice yet.

Those words struck him as wrong. I could see it in his eyes.

He couldn't be anywhere where she was not.

"Promise me, Edward," she insisted.

He closed his eyes against her willful stare and shook his head.

She squeezed his face against her palm and whispered, "Please Edward, for me."

As he could deny her nothing when she begged, he was forced to relent.

He thought his eyes had already spilled all the tears he could manage, but a lone drop fell across his cheek against her chilled fingers.

He nodded his assent as he pushed his cheek into her palm and choked, "For you, Bella. I will for you. I love you."

"I love you to forever, Edward," she responded.

His body shook as he held her hand against his cheek in the place she had touched him. We knew him better than anyone in the world. He wouldn't forget or not abide by his promise.

It was all she asked of him and he couldn't turn her away.

I watched as the last few strands of the rope that held me here floated away with the others.

There was nothing tying me here anymore; nothing holding me to this body that had stopped beating.

The monitors that hung above were void.

A part of me felt the call towards the light they say you see at the end of the tunnel, but something else held me in place.

I needed to find something first.

I found him lying in an incubator two floors above where his mother's body lay.

I knew there was nothing physical about me, but as I studied the tiny, perfect creature I knew I would do anything I could to protect him in this life.

I would love him forever.

The end


End file.
